Tom and I will be at the MAX conference in New Orleans next week. Together with Integration New Media, we would like to invite those of you in the New Orleans area, and those attending MAX to a Director get-together. This will be an opportunity for Director developers to meet-up and talk.

The evening will start off with a little Macromedia/Integration New Media quiz game! This will be your chance to showoff your Director knowledge and to win some great prizes, including Director and INM merchandise and INM product licenses. There will also be a little something for the first arrivals so be sure to get there early!

If you would like to join us, please let us know so we can reserve enough space (add a comment to this post, thanks).

I am pleased to announce that the election content from the RFP we put out in August is live in the Election Spotlight on the player product page! We worked with Chuck Neal of MediaMacros, and Dean Utian of Multimedia Creative to bring you the latest, greatest Make-Your-Own-Presidential-Debate “Battle of the Bull”. And you thought the real debates were silly.

The election is around the corner…so if you like the game, send it to your friends and family. We all know how viral content works, and how it will help player ubiquity.

And in other news today …

In some companies, your first 90 days are considered the “probation” period after which they review you. I guess I’m doing pretty well, because they gave me Tom’s job, too.

Just kiddin’ — we had a slight reshuffle so that we could both do what we do well … for both Director and Shockwave Player. We’re co-Product Managers now. Tom will be the Technical Product Manager, and I will be the Product Manager. He will answer your technical questions, and I will do the Powerpoints.

Ok, I couldn’t say anything about it yesterday … but there is a slide dedicated to Director in today’s earnings presentation! (woo hoo!) There are two screenshots that appear on the slide, as Rob talks about how Director is “the gold standard for multimedia”:

So, Tom, the team, and I are continuing to do our part in making a little noise within the company. We do what we can to remind other Macromedian’s that we’re still here and doing well (…for the company’s bottom line…). Hopefully today’s earnings presentation is a little smile and wave to a few more people out in the world that might have forgotten about us, too.

And I thought it was sort of neat that today was my 3 month anniversary with Macromedia … that is until I discovered today is Tom Higgins’ SIX YEAR anniversary.

If you’re interested, tomorrow is our Q2 FY05 financial results call after market close. It will be broadcast as a Breeze presentation, which will be available at the Macromedia website sometime tomorrow.

Next to my trances they love goin’ through my shopping bags. Once they found this old box of Cream of Wheat. I told ’em, “A box of cereal.”

But they saw it as a picture of infinity. You know how on the front is a picture of that guy holding up a box of Cream of Wheat and on that box is a picture of that guy holding up a box of Cream of Wheat and on that box is a picture of that guy holding up a box of Cream of Wheat and on that box is a picture of that guy holding up a box of Cream of Wheat…

We think so different. They find it hard to grasp some things that come easy to us, because they simply don’t have our frame of reference. I show ’em this can of Campbell’s tomato soup. I say, “This is soup.”

Then I show ’em a picture of Andy Warhol’s painting of a can of Campbell’s tomato soup. I say, “This is art.” “This is soup.” “And this is art.” Then I shuffle the two behind my back. Now what is this? No, this is soup and this is art!…

– Trudy the Bag Lady (Lily Tomlin), “The Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe”

I never really thought I would join the world of blogging … but here I am, to talk about Macromedia Director and Shockwave Player! I think its great that Macromedia encourages this type of communication with its users, and I hope to make it a good way to put out thoughts, comments, ideas and information about what cool and exciting things we’re working on over here.

You know, things like the new “Election Spotlight” on the Shockwave Player product page . We just posted a cool interactive board game, developed by Cable in the Classroom, CNN and The History Channel, where you can experience a self-directed run for the U.S. Presidency. And be sure to check back next week for a new election-related game we’ve been working on.

So, if you want to know a little more about me personally …

I’ve been at Macromedia for about three months, and had a great start jumping right into the v10.1 release. Whew! The team is fabulous (as many of you already know), and they are a huge part of why I was able to hit the ground running.

Before joining Macromedia, I was hitting the books at UCLA Anderson for my MBA (ok, I went to the beach too…). My undergrad was in computer science (read: no time to take finance or accounting classes), so I wanted to take a break from working for a little “back to basics” on the business side. But I am very happy to be back in SF. And I learned that I actually prefer working over homework…My past work experience is in interactive television. I spent a few years with Intel in Portland, OR in various roles from engineering to product marketing before moving to San Francisco to join the ITV firm, Liberate Technologies, where I was the product manager for the content developer tools. I think the ITV experience is fitting with this job, since it was also about content and delivering a good end-user experience.

Ok, that’s it for now. I think that’s pretty good for a first post. 😉
cheers,
e